SX STL 50 wiring question

[superhand]

I need some help with the wiring on my SX STL 50. Yesterday I took of the control plate to check out the pots and the wiring... blah blah blah, to make a long story short, one of the wires popped off due to a very lousy soldering job ($109 guitar made in China, so I'm not that surprised or dissapointed) so I soldered it back in place to where I thought it came from. I plugged it in to see if it worked, and I was getting sound out of it so I was satisfied.

Now today I plug it in and it sounds like my tone knob is backwards, in other words, I get more treble when I turn it down (counter clockwise) and it doesn't sound as bright as it did before, anywhere I put the tone knob. Before it had so much treble I would almost always turn the tone down at least a little bit.

What happened? Everything worked fine before. The volume knob works fine, the pickup switch works fine, its just the tone knob that I am having a problem with. I found a wiring diagram for standard tele type wiring but it is obviously not the same as the SXs.

Here is a picture, the wire that came off was the red wire going to the middle post on the tone knob, that is where it came off on the tone knob.

[cc9cii]

So the orange wire connection to the tone pot came off? If so it should go to the lug that is *not* attached to the green cap. What is that white wire on the tone cap? Where is that connected?

[superhand]

Originally Posted by cc9cii

So the orange wire connection to the tone pot came off? If so it should go to the lug that is *not* attached to the green cap. What is that white wire on the tone cap? Where is that connected?

First of all there is no solder on that one so I don't think it came off of there. Second, if I touch the wire to that post, when I turn the knob, it just decreases the volume.

The white wire goes to the jack.

[superhand]

OK, now I busted out the multi meter, and I'm not getting any conductivity through the capacitor. I should right? Did I ruin the capacitor somehow perhaps?

[cc9cii]

A cap should have no measurable DC resistance. (unless broken)

The tone pot should have 3 lugs. One (the top one on your pic) should be left alone. The other two are interchangeable. Of the remaining two, one usually have a tone cap connected (the other leg of the tone cap soldered to the back of the pot) and the other lug connected to the bottom lug of the volume pot. On your pic it appears to go to the middle lug (some people do this purposely, apparently gives them better tone control but not to my ears).

[superhand]

The capacitor is connected to the middle lug. Which is where the red (it looks more orange in my picture) was connected, I think.

Its kind of hard to tell from the picture but it connects to the middle lug on the volume pot.

[superhand]

Ok, I think I figured it out, it needs to connect to the bottom lug, the same one that connects to the jack. Seems to work properly that way when I touch the wire to it.

Does that seem right?

[cc9cii]

That's what I've been trying to say. I guess I need to work harder on my comms skills.

[superhand]

Thank you, if I had read your other reply more carefully I would have picked up on that. I was going back and forth between this and googling wiring diagrams, capacitors, etc.

I'm still learning.